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Paring for Plantar Warts

Topic Overview

A health professional uses paring to help diagnose and treat
plantar warts. When paring, your health professional
will trim your skin growth with a small knife and examine it. Paring usually
causes little or no pain or bleeding because only the dead outer layers of skin
are removed. After paring the outer skin layers of a wart or
callus, your health professional can look for signs of
plantar wart growth:

The skin's creases and lines over a plantar wart
are distorted.

"Seeds" (indicating blood vessels) are present in
the core of a plantar wart. If pared deeply, the "seeds" will
bleed.

If no "seeds" are visible, the growth may be a callus, corn,
or other skin condition. Wart treatments may leave an uncomfortable scar if
they are used to treat a callus.

Paring can also make some wart treatments work better. Removing
thick, dead layers of skin that cover the wart helps medication, cold, or heat
to reach deeper into the wart.

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